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Priestly   /prˈistli/   Listen
Priestly

adjective
1.
Associated with the priesthood or priests.  Synonyms: hieratic, hieratical, sacerdotal.  "Hieratic gestures"
2.
Befitting or characteristic of a priest or the priesthood.  Synonym: priestlike.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Priestly" Quotes from Famous Books



... passed, without the young Latitudinarian being heard of. Suddenly, he came one evening, in a great state of excitement, and told the Inspector that he was in a position to expose the priestly deceit which he had mentioned, if the authorities would assist him. The police director asked ...
— Selected Writings of Guy de Maupassant • Guy de Maupassant

... being of the same opinion with those who condemned these practices, was ordered, by the sentence of the emperor, to expel Athanasius from his priestly seat; but this he firmly refused to do, reiterating the assertion that it was the extremity of wickedness to condemn a man who had neither been brought before any court nor been heard in his defence, in this openly resisting ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus

... condition—he determined, in case of her reply, to which late examples of hardened heretics might encourage her, to be prepared with answers to the customary scruples. High fraught, also, with zeal against her unauthorized intrusion into the priestly function, by study of the Sacred Scriptures, he imagined to himself the answers which one of the modern school of heresy might return to him—the victorious refutation which should lay the disputant prostrate at the Confessor's mercy—and ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott

... him of which he had been declared guilty by a magistrate, and in punishment of which he had been condemned to fast on bread and water every Friday for three months, and forbidden to exercise his priestly functions in the diocese of Poitiers for five years and in the town of ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - URBAIN GRANDIER—1634 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE

... officiating Priest must have struck you as very antique and out of fashion. Nor is this surprising, for if you saw a lady enter church today with a head-dress such as worn in the days of Queen Elizabeth, her appearance would look to you very singular. Now, our priestly vestments are far older in style than the days of Queen Elizabeth; much older even than the British Empire. Eusebius and other writers of the fourth century speak of them as already existing in their ...
— The Faith of Our Fathers • James Cardinal Gibbons

... Turning away from this "priestly" monument to St. Bertrand's miraculous powers, we passed along the side of the remarkable choir stalls—which take up the greater part of the edifice—and turned inside at an opening, near the high altar. The latter, decorated with the ordinary display of 19th century tinsel, does ...
— Twixt France and Spain • E. Ernest Bilbrough

... appointed for the priests, and for all the rest, which they call Cohanoeoe [-priestly] garments, as also for the high priests, which they call Cahanoeoe Rabbae, and denote the high priest's garments. Such was therefore the habit of the rest. But when the priest approaches the sacrifices, he purifies himself with the purification ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus

... any rate, it was HE who became ultimate chief and leader and laid the foundations of Kingship. The Basileus was always a sacred personality, and often united in himself as head of the clan the offices of chief in warfare and leader in priestly rites—like Agamemnon in Homer, or Saul or David in the Bible. As a magician he had influence over the fertility of the earth and, like the blameless king in the ...
— Pagan & Christian Creeds - Their Origin and Meaning • Edward Carpenter

... the ancient forest the magnolias burn the perfect alban lucence of their lamps; white are their ivory cups like priestly linen, and fragrant with the tang of foreign citrons. An esoteric, mirrored swan slides by like Cleopatra's barge, while drums of color beaten by a maniac blend with old tints of Leonardo's dreams, colors that God might see if his own lightning ...
— Carolina Chansons - Legends of the Low Country • DuBose Heyward and Hervey Allen

... Michael convincingly. "I give you my priestly word, I know, and Jimmy knew, and was altogether willing. He loved you deeply, as he could love any one, Dannie, and he blamed you for nothing at all. The only thing that would have brought Jimmy any comfort in dying, was to know that you would end your life with Mary, and not ...
— At the Foot of the Rainbow • Gene Stratton-Porter

... supposed, as was natural, that they could communicate with their gods in the same way. And they were perfectly sincere in that belief. But in the process of time and migration the theology of the Greeks came to bear little resemblance to that of the Chaldeans. The dignity of the priestly office and the influence of the priesthood became greatly diminished. That the religion of these several nations had one common origin, and that the priests and prophets of God's chosen people had many imitators among other nations, there is ...
— The Galaxy, Volume 23, No. 2, February, 1877 • Various

... of "Mama looking so handsome in violet velvet; trimmed with ermine." Ah, the young Victoria was the only daughter of her Victoria, who as a bride was to receive on her brow that grandmother's kiss—dearer and holier than any priestly benediction. I like to read that immediately after the ceremony the bride ...
— Queen Victoria, her girlhood and womanhood • Grace Greenwood

... bright robes they were like unto so many young kings. High in the summer air they swung their golden censers; from huge baskets, heaped with flowers, they scattered flowers as they swayed, in the grace of their youth, from side to side, with priestly rhythmic motion. ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd

... one! Hail to thee whose temples are like a pomegranate. Hasten to the refuge of thy sister, and protect the son of Isaiah against the troops of the Ammonites. What art thou, O Beauty, that thou shouldst inspire love? that thy voice should ring like the voices of the bells upon the priestly garments? The hour wherein thou desireth my love, I shall hasten to meet thee. Softly will I drop beside thee like the dew ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. II. (of II.), Jewish Poems: Translations • Emma Lazarus

... mail-coat, and would not fight; but he must have kept an eye upon his natural foe through the fray, and it would be strange if he had not some pleasure in perceiving the rochet, which Beatoun must have donned hastily to save himself, pulled over his head by rude hands in scorn of the priestly pretence—and some satisfaction in interposing to preserve the "consecreat bishop," whose ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant

... cities of the Rhine, and the Hansa League, date from the beginning of the thirteenth century; the discovery of how to make paper dates from this time, and printing followed; the revolt of the Albigenses against priestly dominance which drenched the south of France in blood began in the twelfth century; slavery disappeared except in Spain; Wycliffe, born in 1324, translated the Gospels, threw off his allegiance to the papacy, and suffered the cheap vengeance ...
— Germany and the Germans - From an American Point of View (1913) • Price Collier

... one of the sights of the Champagne capital, and notable among other things for its magnificent ancient stained-glass windows, and the handsome modern tomb of the popular Remois saint. It was here in the middle ages that that piece of priestly mummery, the procession of the herrings, used to take place at dusk on the Wednesday before Easter. Preceded by a cross the canons of the church marched in double file up the aisles, each trailing ...
— Facts About Champagne and Other Sparkling Wines • Henry Vizetelly

... within the gates of the Establishment. He regarded them, moreover, as ministers of religion who were hostile to the work of the Reformation, and therefore he deemed that they were in a false position in the Anglican Church. Their priestly claims and sacerdotal rites, their obvious sympathies and avowed convictions, separated them sharply from ordinary clergymen, and were difficult to reconcile with adherence to the principles of Protestantism. Like many other men at the time, and still more of to-day, he was at a loss ...
— Lord John Russell • Stuart J. Reid

... cabin—indeed, it had to. That winter after we had left for the City, the elms were put out—a few six-inch trunks, brought with their own earth frozen to them—a specimen of oak, walnut, hickory (so hard to move)—but an elm over-tone was the plan, and a clump of priestly pines near the stable. These are still in the revulsions of transition; their beauty is yet to be. Time brings that, as it will smoke the beams, clothe the stone-work in vines, establish the roses and wistaria on the ...
— Child and Country - A Book of the Younger Generation • Will Levington Comfort

... They were very far from perfect at the best of times, and the European nations were never completely submissive to them. It would not have been well if they had been. The business of human creatures in this planet is not summed up in the most excellent of priestly catechisms. The world and its concerns continued to interest men, though priests insisted on their nothingness. They could not prevent kings from quarrelling with each other. They could not hinder disputed successions, and civil feuds, and wars, and political conspiracies. What they did ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude

... Duke Bernard had hitherto been impeded by his dependence on a French general, more suited to the priestly robe, than to the baton of command; and although, in conjunction with him, he conquered Alsace Saverne, he found himself unable, in the years 1636 and 1637, to maintain his position upon the Rhine. The ill success of the French arms in the Netherlands had cheated the activity ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller

... society; their books lie on every table; they hob-a-nob with Bishops; and when they come to die, their orthodox relations gather round them, and lay them in the earth 'in the sure and certain hope'—so, at least, priestly lips are found willing to assert—'of the resurrection to eternal life through our Lord Jesus Christ.' And yet there was not a dogma of the Christian faith in which they were in a ...
— In the Name of the Bodleian and Other Essays • Augustine Birrell

... wood, sylvan cloud, nebulous glass, vitreous milk, lacteal water, aquatic stone, lapidary gold, aureous silver, argent iron, ferric honey, mellifluous loving, amatory loving, erotic loving, amiable wedded, hymeneal plow, arable priestly, sacerdotal arrow, sagittal wholesome, salubrious warlike, bellicose timely, temporary fiery, igneous ring, annular soap, saponaceous nestling, nidulant snore, stertorous window, fenestral twilight, crepuscular soot, ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor

... period of feudal and regal oppression, when structures like that of Tintern Abbey necessarily became the scenes of stirring and highly-important events. How altered is the scene! Where were formerly magnificence and splendour; the glittering array of priestly prowess; the crowded halls of haughty bigots, and the prison of religious offenders; there is now but a heap of mouldering ruins. The oppressed and the oppressor have long since lain down together in the peaceful grave. The ruin, generally speaking, is unusually perfect, and the sculpture still beautifully ...
— Three Years in Europe - Places I Have Seen and People I Have Met • William Wells Brown

... were not to be soon drawn dry, nor had I reason to grudge and count their drops. I would have pierced my arm myself and bid her drink. I was careful to make not the slightest allusion to the narcotic she had given me, or to the scene that followed, and we lived in unbroken harmony. But my priestly scruples tormented me more than ever, and I knew not what new penance to invent to blunt my passion and mortify my flesh. Though my visions were wholly involuntary and my will had nothing to do with them, I shrank from touching the host ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury

... all is long, and it is poured forth to heaven. For this reason the altar is round and is divided crosswise by ways at right angles to one another. By these ways Hoh enters after he has repeated the four prayers, and he prays looking up to heaven. And then a great mystery is seen by them. The priestly vestments are of a beauty and meaning like to those of Aaron. They resemble Nature ...
— Ideal Commonwealths • Various

... many a stately poet, many a priestly chronicler attests the genius of Spanish literature, but if these had not been, Don Quixote and Sancho Panza had been its title to immortality. The admirable attributes of Spanish character nowhere found warmer ...
— The Story of the Philippines and Our New Possessions, • Murat Halstead

... in the next century, the seventeenth. Bissendorf perished at the hands of the executioner at the same time that his books, Nodi gordii resolutio (on the priestly calling), 1624, and The Jesuits, were burnt by the same agent. In the case of the De Republica Ecclesiastica (1617) by De Dominis, Christian savagery surpassed itself, for not only was it burnt by sentence of the Inquisition, ...
— Books Condemned to be Burnt • James Anson Farrer

... Sir Godfrey by the extension of two priestly fingers in a style which must require considerable practice, and, in tones which savoured somewhat more of pride than humility, informed him that he came to beg a lodging for himself and his monks for one night. ...
— The White Lady of Hazelwood - A Tale of the Fourteenth Century • Emily Sarah Holt

... sorrow seiz'd those gentle youths, who'd given cureless pain— In haste they sought their priestly sire, in haste return'd again; Return'd to view the elf enthron'd in waters as before, Whose music now was sighs, whose tears gush'd e'en from his heart's core. "Why weeping, Neck? look up, and clear those tearful ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 357 - Vol. XIII, No. 357., Saturday, February 21, 1829 • Various

... elapsed before the book reached its present form, for in the closing chapter, as well as elsewhere, e.g. i. 41-43 (where the joining is not so deftly done as usual) and xxxii. 48-52, there are undoubted traces of the Priestly Code, P, which is generally acknowledged ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 3 - "Destructors" to "Diameter" • Various

... the dark-stoled priestly crew, Came swift trooping where the trumpet Of foul Santa Anna blew." * ...
— Remember the Alamo • Amelia E. Barr

... ourselves," added the general, "Kamaiakan is himself the priestly relative by whom the spell was wrought. He bears an enchanted life, which cannot cease until he has restored the jewels to ...
— The Golden Fleece • Julian Hawthorne

... gentlemen who looked as if they had just stepped out of a picture-frame. They wear their calling on their sleeves, as it were. The Academician has a different costume from the judge. I noticed a clergyman in his priestly robes, his Elizabethan ruff around his neck, his breast covered with decorations. He was sipping a glass of hot punch and smiling benignly about him. He had a most kind and sympathetic face. I would like to confess ...
— The Sunny Side of Diplomatic Life, 1875-1912 • Lillie DeHegermann-Lindencrone

... clergy who were to be found among them were persons whose natural frivolity was unable to withstand the excitement of novelty, even though it proceeded from a demoniacal influence. Some of the affected had indeed themselves declared, when under the influence of priestly forms of exorcism, that, if the demons had been allowed only a few weeks more time, they would have entered the bodies of the nobility and princes, and through these have destroyed the clergy. Assertions of this sort, which those possessed uttered while in a state which may be compared ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various

... essay upon the "first principles of government," by Priestly, an English writer of great ability, written over a century since, is the following ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage

... to do his father's will, and Jacob tithed his sons, consecrating Levi to the Holy One, and appointing him to be the chief of his brethren. He enjoined his sons to have a care that there should never fail them a son of Levi in the priestly succession. And it happened that. of all the tribes Levi was the only one that never proved faithless to the ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg

... shower of bona fide snow, but on examination proved only the light, fleecy down of sea-island cotton. Conspicuous among the trees we encountered on that pleasant morning drive was the Palmier du voyageur, more generally known as the talipat or priestly palm, which was described in a recent number of ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 12, No. 32, November, 1873 • Various

... the city, chose Alessandro de' Medici to be prince. Alessandro was created Duke of Civita di Penna, and married to a natural daughter of Charles V. Ippolito was made a cardinal. Ippolito would have preferred a secular to a priestly kingdom; nor did he conceal his jealousy for his cousin. Therefore Alessandro had him poisoned. Alessandro in his turn was murdered by his kinsman, Lorenzino de' Medici. Lorenzino paid the usual penalty of tyrannicide some years ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds

... were girt with the Urim and Thummim of priestly office, and denied the perpetuity of Jesus' command, "Heal the sick," or its application in all time to those who understand Christ as the Truth and the Life, that man would not expound the ...
— Retrospection and Introspection • Mary Baker Eddy

... iron-shod feet, and sheep for their shepherd who cry; Curses and swords that flash, and the victim proffer'd to die! —Bare thy own back to the smiter, O king, at the shrine of the dead: Thy friend thou hast slain in thy folly; the blood of the Saint on thy head: Proud and priestly, thou say'st;—yet tender and faithful and pure; True man, and so, true saint;—the crown of his martyrdom sure:— As friend with his friend, he could brave thee and warn; thou hast silenced the voice, Ne'er to be heard again:—nor again ...
— The Visions of England - Lyrics on leading men and events in English History • Francis T. Palgrave

... which formulate the law and ritual, are composites which have been whole centuries in the making and remaking. There was no such thing as right of authorship in ancient Israel, little of it in the ancient world at all. What was once written was popular or priestly property. Histories were newly narrated, laws enlarged and rearranged, prophecies attributed to conspicuous persons. All this took place not in deliberate intention to pervert historic truth, but because there was no interest ...
— Edward Caldwell Moore - Outline of the History of Christian Thought Since Kant • Edward Moore

... object of the monk of Malvern Abbey; and he did his work well. The blows he dealt were fierce and strong, and told home. Burgher and baron, monk and cardinal, alike felt the fury of his attacks. He was no respecter of persons. A monk himself, he had no scruples in tearing off the priestly robe that covered lust and rapine. Wrong in high places gained no respect from him. His invectives against a haughty and oppressive nobility and a corrupt and arrogant clergy are unsurpassed in power, and it is easy to understand the hold the poem ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 109, November, 1866 • Various

... man who really loved her she accepted him and sent him to her father, who did all of her refusing for her. And I knew no man would know that he had won the Blight until he had her at the altar and the priestly hand of ...
— A Knight of the Cumberland • John Fox Jr.

... was the unity of God, whom they recognized as the one Supreme Being, who was given the name of Creator, Eternal Father, to indicate the various characters in which he appeared. This pure monotheism was seldom grasped by the great masses of the people; indeed, it is to be supposed that many of the priestly order scarcely rose to its pure conceptions. But there {173} were other groups or dynasties of gods which were worshipped throughout Egypt. These were mostly mythical beings, who were supposed to perform especial functions in the creation and ...
— History of Human Society • Frank W. Blackmar

... in Scotland was kneeling at the family altar in the old Sanctuary Cottage at Torthorwald, while my venerable father, with his high-priestly locks of snow-white hair streaming over his shoulders, commenced us once again to "the care and keeping of the Lord God of the families of Israel." It was the last time that ever on this Earth those accents of intercession, loaded with a pathos of deathless love, would fall upon ...
— The Story of John G. Paton - Or Thirty Years Among South Sea Cannibals • James Paton

... him, his recollection seemed to revive for a moment, and he answered in English or in Ojibway, as he was addressed. At other times, if he began to speak at all, it was in French, the most familiar language of his boyhood, and sometimes scraps of the old priestly Latin would come to his lips as he lay half dozing, and dreaming perhaps of his life in the mission-school, and the time when he was to have been a teacher of his own people. Chiefly, however, he lay quite silent, and ...
— A Canadian Heroine, Volume 2 - A Novel • Mrs. Harry Coghill

... far-off cousin the Mississippi. Its banks are low like the Mississippi's, its current, swift, its way through solitary lands. The same sentiment of early adventure hangs about each: both are haunted by visions of the Jesuit in his priestly robe, and the soldier in his mediaeval steel; the same gay, devout, and dauntless race has touched them both with immortal romance. If the water were of a dusky golden color, instead of translucent green, and the shores and islands were covered with cottonwoods ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... tribal laws or priestly hand Can rivet adverse hearts in one; Compulsion has no iron band So strong it may not be undone; But ties of mutual interest That spring spontaneous from the soul, Are never by themselves oppressed, Their silken cords have full control. To know, to feel, to fully share ...
— Our Profession and Other Poems • Jared Barhite

... Mrs. Berry had prepared a sumptuous breakfast. Chickens offered their breasts: pies hinted savoury secrets: things mystic, in a mash, with Gallic appellatives, jellies, creams, fruits, strewed the table: as a tower in the midst, the cake colossal: the priestly vesture of its nuptial white relieved ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... and misty ages of the past, when wandering bands of ape-like human beings had not developed their tribal customs to the level of priestly ceremonies,—when the medicine-man had not arisen,—a marriage between a man and young woman was generally consummated by the man beating the girl into insensibility, and dragging her by the hair to his cave. ...
— "Where Angels Fear to Tread" and Other Stories of the Sea • Morgan Robertson

... the ancient world who refer to the Druids, do not always make it sufficiently clear in what districts the rites, ceremonies, and functions which they were describing prevailed. Nor was it so much the priestly character of the Druids that produced the deepest impression on the ancients. To some philosophical and theological writers of antiquity their doctrines and their apparent affinities with Pythagoreanism were of much greater interest than their ceremonial or other functions. ...
— Celtic Religion - in Pre-Christian Times • Edward Anwyl

... village meets in festal array; the youngest Nistinare brings from the church the icones of the two saints, and drums are carried behind them in procession. They reach the sacred well in the wood, which the priest blesses. This is parallel to the priestly benediction on 'Fountain Sunday' of the well beneath the Fairy Tree at Domremy, where Jeanne d'Arc was accused of meeting the Good Ladies. {169} Everyone drinks of the water, and there is a sacrifice of rams, ewes, and oxen. A festival follows, as was the use ...
— Modern Mythology • Andrew Lang

... See, Friedel, wouldst thou have me all that the old Adlersteinen were, and worse too? then wilt thou leave me and hide thine head in some priestly cowl. Maybe thou thinkest to pray my soul into safety at the last moment as a favour to thine own abundant sanctity; but I tell thee, Friedel, that's no manly way to salvation. If thou follow'st that track, I'll take care to get past ...
— The Dove in the Eagle's Nest • Charlotte M. Yonge

... awoke his sensibilities—the touch of nature. Before God at that moment he was his father's son. If the world, or the world's law, said otherwise, then they were of the devil, and deserving to be damned. What rite, what jabbering ceremony, what priestly ordinance, what legal mummery, stood between him and his claim to his ...
— A Son of Hagar - A Romance of Our Time • Sir Hall Caine

... 'Let priestly S—h—n in a godly fit The tale relate, in aid of Holy Writ; Though candid Adams, by whom David fell [A], Who ancient miracles sustained so well, To recent wonders may deny his aid, Nor own a pious brother ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 4 (of 6) • Boswell

... had acted upon impulse, upon the instinct of decency and honour, never counting the consequences. But he realized them now at the sinister invitation of M. de Chabrillane, and if he desired to avoid these consequences, it was out of respect for his priestly vocation, which strictly forbade such adjustments of disputes as M. de Chabrillane was clearly ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini

... disrobed of his priestly garments by Mrs. Smith's skinny hand, highly offended at so gross an invasion of his rights and dignities, to console himself he determined to run home and tell his mother of ...
— The Cabin on the Prairie • C. H. (Charles Henry) Pearson

... whose very presence in that noble line is a prophecy of the glorious truth that the Son of David was to be also the Son of man, the Saviour of sinners of every name and nation, the kinsman of all races, the brother of humanity, and that as he represents them all in his priestly intercession yonder, so in each of them we may see a representative of him here and ...
— American Missionary, Volume 43, No. 12, December, 1889 • Various

... this or that other mental character: are they devotional, thoughtful, affectionate, indignant, or inspired? are they prophets, saints, priests, or kings? then—whatsoever is truly thoughtful, affectionate, prophetic, priestly, kingly—that the Florentine school tried to discern, and show; that they have discerned and shown; and all their greatness is first fastened in their aim at this central truth—the open expression of the ...
— The Two Paths • John Ruskin

... right to interfere in the affairs of the Church. One of the bishops of Rome (Pope Gelasius I, d. 496) briefly stated the principle upon which the Church rested its claims, as follows: "Two powers govern the world, the priestly and the kingly. The first is indisputably the superior, for the priest is responsible to God for the conduct of even the emperors themselves." Since no one denied that the eternal interests of mankind, which devolved upon the Church, were infinitely more important than ...
— An Introduction to the History of Western Europe • James Harvey Robinson

... was a priestly city, lay in the tribe of Benjamin, about six miles and a half from Jerusalem; and there, in the reign of David, the Tabernacle, which had been at Shiloh, had somehow come ...
— Little Folks (July 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various

... visit Heloise—for he still loved her tenderly. At length Abelard offered to marry Heloise —but on a shameful condition: that the marriage should be kept secret from the world, to the end that (while her good name remained a wreck, as before,) his priestly reputation might be kept untarnished. It was like that miscreant. Fulbert saw his opportunity and consented. He would see the parties married, and then violate the confidence of the man who had taught him that trick; he would divulge the secret and so remove somewhat ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... Philip the Second, in which they supplicated his intervention in behalf of the Catholic religion, now threatened with ruin. Happily the enterprise was nipped in the bud, and, on the arrest of Artus at Orleans, on his way to Spain, the nefarious conspiracy was fully divulged. The priestly agent, after craven prayers for his life, was immured for a time in a cloister.[1014] Well might the Romish party fear. The curiosity to hear the preaching of the Word of God by men of piety and learning, the desire to hear those grand psalms of Marot solemnly ...
— The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird

... pathway 'neath our feet, Though nothing in life be left that's sweet; Though friends prove faithless in trial's hours And love a curst and poisonous flower; Though Belial stalk in priestly gown And virtue's reward is fortune's frown; Though true hearts bleed and the coward slave Tramples in dust the fallen brave; Think not the unworthy acts of men Will 'scape the recording angel's pen; The ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann

... support of property; others—and they are more numerous and the more rich—for a constitutional monarchy, and, if possible, for the abridgment of universal suffrage, which in their eyes tends only to anarchy in the towns and arbitrary rule under priestly influence in the rural districts. They would not subscribe a sou if they thought it went to further the designs whether of Ruvigny the atheist, or of Monnier, who would enlist the Deity of Rousseau on the side of the drapeau ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... foolish pride, but only recently had it created anything approaching estrangement between them. And this situation was the more difficult to bear because of their long intellectual and artistic companionship. She was more to him than a son, for he had a priestly appreciation of the subtlety of women. He had watched her mind unfold in foreign travel, little dreaming that this experience with him was sowing the seeds of discontent with her narrow environment which were now beginning to bear such bitter ...
— The Mayor of Warwick • Herbert M. Hopkins

... their equipoise, a monarchy and hierarchy break out of the confusion of ambitious struggles, and the foundation of both is secured by feudal tenures. This appears to be the origin of monarchial and priestly power, and the dawn of civilization. But such combustible materials cannot long be pent up; and getting vent in foreign wars and intestine insurrections, the people acquire some power in the tumult, which obliges their rulers to gloss over ...
— A Vindication of the Rights of Woman - Title: Vindication of the Rights of Women • Mary Wollstonecraft [Godwin]

... says nothing about this Jeromite proposition, but records the arrival of this priestly commission, (Hist. Ind., Book IV. ch. 3,) and that one object of it was to provide for the Indians,—"buen tractamiento conserveion de los indios." He says that all the remedial measures which ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various

... into Ludwig's counsels the most despotic and illiberal of the Jesuits. Through the influence of his ministers the natural liberality of the King was perpetually thwarted; and the Government degenerated into a petty tyranny, where priestly influence was sucking out the very ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham

... the royal house of the Hasmoneans. His genealogy, which he traces back to the time of the Maccabean princes, is a little vague, and we may suspect that he was not above improving it. But his family was without doubt among the priestly aristocracy of Jerusalem, and his father, he says, was "eminent not only on account of his nobility, but even ...
— Josephus • Norman Bentwich

... yet further hinted at by the several postures that Christ is said to be in, as he exerciseth his priestly and advocate's office. As a Priest, he sits; as an Advocate, he stands (Isa 3:13). The Lord stands up when he pleads; his sitting is more constant and of course (Sit thou, Psa 110:1,4), but his standing is occasional, when Joshua is indicted, or when hell and earth are broken loose ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... Doctrines.—The priestly class. Shamanism. Theocracies. Secret orders. Initiations. Diviners. Augurs and prophets. Doctrines of ...
— Anthropology - As a Science and as a Branch of University Education in the United States • Daniel Garrison Brinton

... this degradation and slavery the Jews were rescued by a line of heroes whom God raised up—the Asmoneans, or Maccabees. The head of this heroic family was Mattathias, a man of priestly origin, living in the town of Modin, commanding a view of the sea—an old man of wealth and influence who refused to depart from the faith of his fathers, while most of the nation had relapsed into the paganism of the Greeks. He slew with his own hand an apostate ...
— Ancient States and Empires • John Lord

... votive steed 'twere good to slay, So might a son the gift repay." Before his lords his plan he laid, And bade them with their wisdom aid: Then with these words Sumantra, best Of royal counsellors, addressed: "Hither, Vasishtha at their head, Let all my priestly guides be led." To him Sumantra made reply: "Hear, Sire, a tale of days gone by. To many a sage in time of old, Sanatkumar, the saint, foretold How from thine ancient line, O King, A son, when years came round, should spring. "Here dwells," 'twas thus the seer began, "Of Kasyap's(80) race, ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI

... path, he knocked loudly on the door. Receiving no reply, he pushed it open and stepped into the dim light of the interior. There he found his host, the good father Claude, stretched upon his back on the floor, the breast of his priestly robes dark with dried and ...
— The Outlaw of Torn • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... blessed water is also kept in the house for use in great emergencies, when there is no time to fetch a priest; thus it may be employed to baptize a newborn infant gasping for life or to sprinkle a sick man in the last agony; such a sprinkling is reckoned equal to priestly absolution.[308] In Calabria the customs with regard to the new water, as it is called, on Easter Saturday are similar; it is poured into a new vessel, adorned with ribbons and flowers, is blessed by the priest, and is ...
— Balder The Beautiful, Vol. I. • Sir James George Frazer

... had paid to Celia. They warmed his senses as he recalled them, but they also, in a curious, indefinite way, caused him uneasiness. There had been a personal fervor about them which was something more than priestly. He remembered how the priest had turned pale and faltered when the question whether Celia would escape the general doom of her family came up. It was not a merely pastoral agitation ...
— The Damnation of Theron Ware • Harold Frederic

... did, for we did not see our shendzas that night as they arrived after the city gates had been shut so that they could not get in. But we had a little cocoa, tinned corn beef, condensed milk, butter and marmalade. Same German soldiers sent three loaves of coarse bread. Our priestly host added some Chinese bread, and so had a good supper ...
— An Inevitable Awakening • ARTHUR JUDSON BROWN

... the reason why Ikhnaton was later described as a "heretic" be that he violated the code of the priestly hierarchy by revealing this secret doctrine to the profane? Hence, too, perhaps the necessity in which the King found himself of suppressing the priesthood, which by persisting in its exclusive attitude ...
— Secret Societies And Subversive Movements • Nesta H. Webster

... without time for thought. Then he was off again on his hurried round as canvasser. One incident, however, made a definite impression upon him. Returning for the second or third time to the Central Rooms he found himself in a crowd of Irish labourers who had come in deference to priestly bidding to record their votes. Mr. Hutchings' retirement had excited their native suspiciousness; they felt that they had been betrayed, and yet the peremptory orders they had received must be followed. The satisfaction of revolt being ...
— Elder Conklin and Other Stories • Frank Harris

... amongst all mankind, Received the transcript of the eternal mind; Were trusted with His own engraven laws, And constituted guardians of His cause: Their's were the prophets, their's the priestly call, And their's, by birth, the ...
— G. K. Chesterton, A Critical Study • Julius West

... this sacred rite. These four red kernels were mixed with the ordinary seed corn, that it might be vivified by them and made to yield an ample harvest. Red is the symbolic color of life. In this ceremony is preserved a trace of the far-away time when all the precious seed corn was in the care of priestly keepers. The ceremony of giving out the four red kernels served to turn the thoughts of the people from a dependence solely on their own labor in cultivating corn to the life-giving power of ...
— Indian Games and Dances with Native Songs • Alice C. Fletcher

... grey and restful eyes, As ashes follow flame. But O! I heard a voice from those rich skies Call tenderly my name; It was as if some priestly fingers stole In benedictions o'er my ...
— Flint and Feather • E. Pauline Johnson

... the despots darling dream, a Church to rule and sway the State; Hence sprang the train of countless griefs in priestly sway ...
— The Kasidah of Haji Abdu El-Yezdi • Richard F. Burton

... if he had daylight to befriend him, he declares, that with or without the Hermit's consent, he is determined to be his guest that night. He is admitted accordingly, not without a hint from the Recluse, that were he himself out of his priestly weeds, he would care little for his threats of using violence, and that he gives way to him not out of intimidation, but ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott

... bring it down by himself, I hear," Hubert replied. "Nay, there's no use in waxing wroth, friend! My death now would clap thee in a tighter puzzle than thou art in already—and I should be able to laugh down at thee from a better world," he added, mimicking the priestly cadence, and looking at Geoffrey half fierce ...
— The Dragon of Wantley - His Tale • Owen Wister

... paratime. Fringed robes and cloth-of-gold sashes and conical caps from the Second Level Khiftan Sector; Fourth Level Proto-Aryan mail and helmets; the short tunics and kilts of Fourth Level Alexandrian-Roman Sector; the Zarkantha loincloth and felt cap and daggers; there were priestly vestments stiff with gold, and military uniforms; there were trousers and jackboots and bare legs; blasters, and swords, and pistols, and bows and quivers, and spears. And the place was loud with a babel of voices and the clatter ...
— Time Crime • H. Beam Piper

... so adverse to their interests, seemed turning in their favor at last. Archie had done great things for himself, and the mother's eyes rested on him proudly as he performed the marriage ceremony for his young sister, the gravity of his priestly office setting him apart, as it were, for her reverence as well as love. That Isabel had done great things for herself also could not be denied. But there were other causes for content in the ...
— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey

... firmly and conversed in undertone, encouraging each other to stand firm. Each held a crucifix and pressed it to his lips, repeating the creed. Halfway across to the gibbet, they were stopped, the crucifixes torn from their hands, and their priestly robes stripped from them. There they stood, clad only in scant underclothes, in sight of the mob that seethed and mocked. Sharp sticks were thrust up between the crevices of the board walk, so blood streamed from ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 7 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Orators • Elbert Hubbard

... alternation, or mixture, of music with discoursing, sound with sense, poetry with thought"—such having been, in fact, one of the most familiar of the Rabbinical interpretations designed to expound the symbolism of this priestly decoration prescribed in "Exodus." From 1841 to 1846 the numbers of Bells and Pomegranates successively appeared; with the eighth the series closed. The first number—Pippa Passes—was sold for sixpence; when King Victor and King Charles was published in the ...
— Robert Browning • Edward Dowden

... builds high a sepulcher Of cloudy granite and of gold, Where twilight's priestly hours inter The Day like some ...
— Poems • Madison Cawein

... paltry pride arrayed in rich attire, And woe is me for priestly praise which is our heart's desire! Would we could seek, like pilgrims gray, beside that sunlit sea, The simple faith that lit the shores of ...
— The Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56, No. 2, January 12, 1884 - A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside • Various

... overstocked and underpaid. The large class of government officials or "impiegati," to whom admirers of the Papacy point with such pride as evidence of the secular character of the administration, are paid on the most niggardly scale; while all the lucrative and influential posts are reserved for the priestly administrators. The avowed venality of the courts of justice is a proof that lawyers are too poorly remunerated to find honesty their best policy, while the extent to which barbers are still employed as surgeons shows that the medical profession ...
— Rome in 1860 • Edward Dicey

... be exempt from all episcopal and civil jurisdiction and taxes, so that they acknowledged no authority but that of the pope and the superiors of their order, and were permitted to exercise every {95} priestly function, parochial rights notwithstanding, among all classes of men, even during an interdict; but, also (what is not even permitted to archbishops unconditionally), they could absolve from all sins and ecclesiastical ...
— Mysticism and its Results - Being an Inquiry into the Uses and Abuses of Secrecy • John Delafield

... express it, and this, in some form or other, will be the clergy"?[1] Surely if there were no "orders" in the beginning, then a priesthood was no creation of Jesus, his apostles were no priests, they created, therefore, no priests, and a priestly caste grew up as an intrusion in Christendom just as it arose in the religion of the holy Buddha in India, and attempted, though unsuccessfully, to invade the severely simple ...
— Morality as a Religion - An exposition of some first principles • W. R. Washington Sullivan

... to the distinction which is in each: for it is the property of the singular number, to distinguish unity from plurality: and of the plural, to distinguish plurality from unity. Among the authors who are thus silent, are Lily, Colet, Brightland, Harris, Lowth, Ash, Priestly, Bicknell, Adam, Gould, Harrison, Comly, Jaudon, Webster, Webber, Churchill, Staniford, Lennie, Dalton, Blair, Cobbett, Cobb, A. Flint, Felch, Guy, Hall, and S. W. Clark. Adam and Gould, however, in explaining the properties of verbs, say: "Number ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown

... become the temporary abode of human beings. Even a wolf could be human under an animal form. Thus Giraldus Cambrensis records that a priest was addressed in Ireland by a wolf, and induced to administer the consolations of his priestly office to his wife, who, also, under the shape of a she-wolf was apparently at the point of death, and to convince the priest that she was really a human being the he-wolf, her husband, tore off the skin of the she-wolf from the head down ...
— Welsh Folk-Lore - a Collection of the Folk-Tales and Legends of North Wales • Elias Owen

... fertile land, and were the sole inhabitants of many large towns or villages, which they were permitted to govern as they pleased. The arbitrary power of the monarchs must, in practice, have been largely checked by the privileges of this numerous priestly caste, of which it would seem that in later times they became jealous, thereby preparing the way ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 6. (of 7): Parthia • George Rawlinson

... leap toward Sin and Satan, think you? Nathless, am I quite as willing to take my chance of Heaven in a coat of mail as in the priestly gown." ...
— Beatrix of Clare • John Reed Scott



Words linked to "Priestly" :   priesthood, sacerdotal, hieratical, unpriestly, priest, hieratic



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